Well, being a 3rd generation immigrant does not make you an educated/successful/intelligent person by default. And honestly: 3rd generation is for me a native, except that the immigration background on average means a lower education and therefore job/salary. (Yes, Hayek was a very successful guy, I said "on average") They support the FN for rather selfish reasons: If you are a low educated worker, uneducated immigrants are a direct threat to your personal income - they are willing to work for next to nothing and are even motivated to work hard for it...
Here in Switzerland it is less severe but even on this forum did some long term members raise some "I am here longer, so I deserve to be treated better than newcomers" stuff when the government heavily restricted non-EU permits last year...

That sounds like a perfectly rational objection to immigration to me.

Don't all political forces to some extent exaggerate and dump logics for jingoism. The centre right exaggerates the dangers of budget deficits and would scare us into reducing government spending more than is rationally necessary so that we support its programmes of austerity and privatisation. The left exaggerates social issues and makes out that the plight of the poor and the unemployed is worse than it actually is, giving the middle class a bad conscience so they agree to more taxes. The greens exaggerate the risk of nuclear disaster and scare people into opposing nuclear power on principle rather than taking a differentiated view. The right wing scare us by exaggerating the problems and failures of integration and foreigner-run criminality. What's the difference? They all have their pet topic and scare us and then claim to have the silver bullet in order to get our vote. The truth or logics don't come into it. At least in Switzerland citizens get to vote on issues directly and often common sense is stronger than party mantras.

Some of the most adamant supporters of anti-foreigner policies are integrated foreigners who once faced discrimination of their own. I see this in Mexican-Americans who vote against immigration benefits in the US, as well as in Swiss-Italians who were once discriminated against in Switzerland. The typical rational is, "Well this batch of new foreigners mess things up in a way we never did. When we were foreigners, we.....(blah blah blah)".

Often, native Swiss have a much more lenient attitude towards foreigners than these. Interesting sociology.

Often though, new immigrants are seen as a threat because they are much better educated/trained- like Polish builders/plumbers in the UK or ... British or other IT managers in CH.

What was that wonderful book about a family from Naples in NY, who is truly rattled by the arrival of newer family members? Can anyone help here. I have relatives in the US whose family name was changed to an American sounding name after they 'made good', by dropping the 'i' at the end. I am of Huguenot origin - so French protestants who escaped torture and death for their religious beliefs, by coming to the Jura (others went to the UK or the the Cape)- and yet by the second generation they'd converted to Catholicism to fit in and get on.

I agree, completely, and the centre right and centre left are still on the same spectrum as the extremist parties, just far removed. The conservatives aim is to keep the rich rich and the poor poor, champion the vacant notion of elitism until it develops some sort of significance and completely extinguish social mobility and grind the poor into the ground for the good of the elite and successive generations of the elite.

The fascists just elaborate and extend this policy in terms of race and social Darwinism, anyone who is familiar with the works of Ann Coulter will know the conservatives are not always as watered down as they would like to appear...

Nothing like a good 'ol political stereotype to get the juices flowing on a sunny Tuesday lunchtime, eh?

In which case the SVP should be secretly enthusiastic about immigration as it is contributing to its future support base?

And by the same logic it is the left that is secretly anti-immigration while pretending to like it?

The dynamics of left-right politics cannot be easily distilled into a simplistic equation.

There is a lapse of judgement from lefties that since they purport to stand up for immigrants, that immigrants will support them in return. But for the most part, immigrant families tend to be a LOT more conservative than lefties. Oftentimes, they are more extreme right-wing nutters than the existing right-wing.

The truth about immigration is that its economic purpose is to regulate the cost of labor. This benefits business owners and the economy. The ones who are left out of this are working class Swiss who have their wages squeezed. They typically move to the right-wing, not the left-wing. The ones who shift to the left are typically those who are rich enough to afford the luxury of the opinion.

I thought most went to Prussia as the emperor invited them to come (because they were educated and skilled craftsmen and - if they managed to rescue their property - wealthy.)

Yes, being scared of immigrants is a reason to be against them... not being willing to compete in a free and fair market is ok (- but it never worked on the long run. )
The fun thing is that many right winged parties on the one hand claim to be for free trade and unlimited access of Swiss companies to the world market, but reject any possible downside of said freedom.

I have no problem with liberal ideas as long as all understand the implications of them and I have no problem with left ideas as long as the consequences are clear. That's the idea of democracy: The people should choose what they prefer. But just wanting to take and not willing to give does not work - not in politics, business or even private life.

Concrete example: The Lega dei Ticino wants to outlaw cross-border employment and give the jobs to Swiss instead. From my experience have Swiss applicants NEVER had a disadvantage compared to foreigners applying for the same job. I have only seen foreigners getting the jobs either no Swiss applied for or were so significantly underqualified that the employer had little choice.

Kicking Italians out will only
- leave a gap in the jobs no Swiss wants to do in the low educated sector and
- companies who cannot find the right candidate moving their jobs abroad or to a different part of Switzerland for high qualified jobs.

One can like or dislike globalization, but you have to comepte in a global market anyway. Locking up the Swiss border is no solution, not even a little or short-term.

They are watching you Nil Canadian ,one of theme ,french,montreal bad combo

Umm, I'm Swiss (and only Swiss).

Also, the Lega isn't anti foreigner, it's pro-Ticino.

Tom

Where do you come up with such nonsense?

Tom

Aren't you over simplifying here?

There is probably no country and no government in the world that is truly socialist down to every detail just as there is no government that is truly capitalist in every respect. Governments pick and choose from different systems and seek to open markets when they think their country stands to benefit, and they erect barriers where they think their country needs protection just as they let the private sector run certain parts of the economy while they prefer to let the state run others, again based on perceived or real advanatges and disadvanatges of the respective models. And at the end of the day, what's wrong with that? As long as they are honest about it.

Ok, you are either extremly naive and you seriously do not know what club you are supporting here... or you are ingorant in the second meaning of the word.

Interview by Swissinfo with the "president for life" and founder of the party himself: What values do you support?

"First and foremost do we want to protect Switzerland from an invasion of foreigners."

The entire interview full of makes it clear that the Lega basically wants to get rid of foreigners and lock the border.

On my nutter remark: The Lega seriously wanted to declare war against Lybia and attack the country when the two businessmen were held hostage... populistic. yes, intelligent: not so much. http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/...story/29899138

I find people extreme that come up with nonsense like this one:



Describing foreigners as rats is extreme, but I will not discuss it again as we already did to great lengths: We are not black sheep anymore... we are rats.

yes, but did we ever verify whether this has anything to do with the Lega? You might as well blame the Junge CVP Baselland.

Isn't Balair a charter airline, actually owend by Air Berlin?

I can understand they don't want people driving over the border when they could be flying

I just don't get the harping on frontaliers; I sort of have my fingers in the watch industry and the vast majority of worker bees I know are French*. There simply aren't enough qualified Swiss to man the positions, period. The crazy part is, many of the French would love to live here, but can't, they can't get a resident permit. So they take their salaries home and spend all that money outside of the country. Just doesn't make any sense to me.

*My rough guess is 70 percent of the labor workforce in the industry are foreign- will have to try and dig up some real numbers.

Is it true that the Lega want to introduce British roundabouts so they can always keep to the right?

I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you were saying... where were now... oh yes, all foreigners out of Switzerland! Now!*

*that's my way of saying that "sense" doesn't really come into it.